Sunday, April 02, 2017

If Scott Brown had a baseball card, this certainly would be a good pose. By the way, the shirts were socheap that after games we had sunburns on our back - except where the numbers were located.

Sometimes the planets in the solar system line up just right, and you find yourself orbiting with a similar object for a while.

That might be the oddest way anyone has described a friendship, but it comes to mind when I think back on my friendship with Scott Brown. He passed away on Friday after a long illness.

Scott showed up at WEBR Radio in Buffalo in 1979, shortly after I did. We quickly found ourselves to be relatively kindred spirits. The two of us were just getting by financially, since it was rare in those days to get a raise until Congress boosted the minimum wage. We were thinking that better days were ahead, and we couldn't wait to get there. That made us a little rebellious and brash at times. But we also were determined to have some fun along the way.

It didn't take long for us to click. Scott was a good-natured presence in the newsroom. He wasn't above the cheap laugh - such as putting a microphone screen over his nose, and lapsing into a Karl Malden/American Express ad imitation. "Lost your wallet? What will you do? What ... will ... you ... do?" But he was obviously smart and knew his stuff.

There are a variety of "you had to be there" stories that come to mind. One time Scott was working on the writer-reporter's desk when protestors at Love Canal took a couple of state workers "hostage" in a symbolic act. Scott knew someone in the protest group and called her up, asking how the hostages were doing. "Oh, you want to talk to one of them?" the woman answered. Scott said OK, and she handed the phone to him. "Hi, Scott, how are you?" he asked. Scott answered, "How am I? You're the hostage! How are you?!"

For whatever reason, I remember the time he stopped in the sports office on his way out the door. Scott had to cover some event, and told me he had to stop at the bank or something on the way back to do some personal business. In my best snarky tone, I jokingly said, "Well, don't forget to punch out." He replied in fake horror, "Punch out? What is this, Two Guys?" And then we both laughed loudly.

Naturally, more fun came after hours. Snapshots of those moments come back every so often.

That's Scott at the writer-reporter's desk in the main newsroomat WEBR in August 1979, with Dennis Keefe on the left of thephotograph. Kids, that object in front of Scott was calleda typewriter. Ask your parents about it some day.

* Athletics. The WEBR slo-pitch softball team was usually mediocre, mostly because we didn't have enough people on the staff to have a deep roster. We had to rely on pitching and defense. I can say that here because I was the usual starting pitcher, and Scott was the backup. Our strategy was to try to have people hit the ball toward center fielder Steve Tawa, who could catch anything hit in the area code. Occasionally, someone would hit the ball over Steve's head and off a house on the other side of a fence. Scott would come over from second base with some comforting words. "Don't throw him that pitch again," he snorted. We all spent several Saturday afternoons together as a team, drowning our sorrows or celebrating our wins at Wiechec's in Buffalo.

I probably had an edge on the softball field over Scott, especially at the plate, but he was a better basketball player. Those guys from New Jersey always loved to take the ball to the hoop. But neither of us took to roller skating, as we discovered one frigid February night.

Reporter Mark Charlton used to have "Blue February" parties, saying that by that time everyone in Buffalo is depressed that winter is still going on and on by that month. Therefore, he'd have a party featuring blue mixed drinks. Around 11:30 p.m., someone remembered that the group from Channel 17, a business partner of WEBR, had rented out a roller-skating rink in Amherst. So off we all went, a bit overserved at the time. Scott grabbed on to "instructor" Pam Benson for support and lessons, which was a less-than-subtle but wise move on his part. Pam quickly regretted it, I'm sure, upon realizing that Scott was on shaky legs and didn't know how to skate. When he fell down, she fell down. The noise of falling bodies always drew a stare even with the loud disco music in the hall, and it was followed by Scott's distinctive high-pitched giggle. Scott reported a day later that, "Boy, is my ass sore, and I can't remember why."

* Poker. Scott fit in pretty quickly with my high school pals for the odd game of poker. One time I had invited some of them to my house for a little gambling, followed by a movie on the newly-invented and just-purchased VCR. The idea of watching a film on video tape at home was a exciting novelty then. Still, whenever Scott lost a hand, he'd mournfully look at his shrinking pile of chips and say grimly, "No movies!" We never did see that Woody Allen film.

One game that we used to play was called "Garbage." It was a seven-card game with a ton of wild-cards. The catch was that a pair of natural sevens beat everything. In one game, Scott seemed sure to win a nice pot, because he had about six aces. But someone came up with the two sevens, turning sure victory into defeat. Scott didn't take it well, since $15 was big money at that point in our lives. On the very next hand, featuring a different type of seven-card stud game, someone got two straight sevens face up. "Two sevens - you win!" Scott shouted with mock enthusiasm and he started pushing things at the other player. "You win all the chips in the pot, and all of the chips in my pile, and all of the potato chips in the bowl, and my beer, and all the money in my wallet, and my credit cards, and (dramatically reaching into his pocket for keys) my car!" The set-up and timing were so good that Glenn Locke nearly spit his beer out on to the table when the car keys came out.

Fan Kim Dehlinger, Scott and Bill Rosinski go over a softball game at Wiechec's in South Buffalo. We neededlessons on how to wear our baseball caps.

* Music. I believe Scott and I went to the relatively famous Who concert at Memorial Auditorium together. That was the one right after the show in Cincinnati that featured a stampede caused by festival seating, and a few people died. We also saw Bruce Springsteen at the Aud. The Boss played "Thunder Road" at the end of the first set, and we talked at intermission. "I can go home now," Scott said. "That's what I came to hear."

You more than get the idea. Alas, the good times usually don't last forever. WEBR had a lot of talented people at the time who moved on to better things when they got the chance. Scott got one of those offers, and soon he was off to do television news for Channel 2. He roomed with Glenn for three years in that era, so we still saw each other quite a bit. But clearly, Scott had moved into a different orbit. It happens.

Eventually, Scott left broadcasting for a stint in County Executive Gorski's office. There he got to know my wife, so she saw him more than I did for a while. We'd bump into him somewhere, and he was always chatty and friendly. Then Scott took a job for District Attorney Eliot Spitzer in the New York City area and was gone ... until he came back somewhat unexpectedly to WGRZ. Our paths crossed once in a great while, such as when mutual friends like Mark Hamrick came back to Buffalo to visit. He seemed happy and content, which was great, and he did his job very well. But we were still in separate orbits.

Then Scott more or less disappeared from on-air work without explanation. I think I sent him an email message to check in, but never heard back. Hmmm. Then a mutual friend said he spotted Scott at Roswell Park. Well, at least that explained things a bit. Scott certainly had a private side. When I asked a friend at the television station about the situation, he said I knew more than he did. I was heartened by Scott's return to the air at one point, but then saddened by his disappearance again after a short stint.

You put a few miles on the odometer, and you are bound to come across situations where you know bad news is coming but you don't know when. Such was the case here, so I was shocked but not surprised by the announcement of his passing.

Scott and I developed one habit when there was mutual good news, like a run scored in softball or a split pot in poker. We'd try to give each other a "high five," except miss on purpose as if we were total nerds. No comments, please. I would have liked to have tried it one more time, except that we'd actually complete the gesture for once to mark the good times we had together. But since I can't, I'll just be happy that our paths, er, orbits once crossed.

(Those interested can make a donation here. Feel free to share a fun story about Scott in the comments section.)